


The Circle of Fish

by ciescenlu



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, No Plot/Plotless, refers to the fish seen in the last episode of season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28661682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciescenlu/pseuds/ciescenlu
Summary: Taki helps Natsume show Tanuma the fish in the pond.
Relationships: Natsume Takashi & Taki Tooru & Tanuma Kaname
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	The Circle of Fish

“Natsume!” Taki yelled as she ran towards him and into Tanuma’s garden with an old leather notebook in one hand and waving a sturdy wooden stick in the other. It was a warm Sunday morning after a night of light spring rain. The dirt was still soft and damp. After a week of scheming in secret at school, Taki and Natsume finally found the perfect day to enact their plan.

  
Natsume waved and smiled warmly, "Good morning, Taki."

  
She smiled back. "Good morning! I'm not too late am I? How long have you been waiting here?"

  
"Don't worry, I only just got here too. Sorry for making you come out here so early."

  
"It's okay! We both decided that we wanted it to be a surprise, so we just need to finish it before he wakes up and leaves the house."

  
Natsume nodded. "Have you figured out if the circle will work or not?" he asked.

  
"Um," she dropped her stick onto the grass and started flipping through the pages of her book, "I think so?" she said hesitantly. “It should work...in theory.”

  
"Is something wrong?" he asked.

  
"There's actually something I'm really curious about." She looked back up at Natsume. "If I draw a circle in the grass with the pond in it, then hopefully the pond will be visible, right? That's what we've been planning to do, and what we're hoping will happen when we finish. But what happens to the circle if the pond is there?"

  
"What do you mean?"

  
She grabbed her stick and started to inquisitively tap on the grass in front of her. "Where's the pond?"

  
Natsume pointed to a spot. "Here, that's where the center of the pond is."

  
"Hm, so you see water here?" she asked as she poked at the spot a few times. After Natsume nodded, she walked over and stood on top of the patch of grass she had been poking at. "I see grass beneath me. I'm standing on grass. I can draw on this grass, but when you look at me, what am I standing on?"

  
He sat down and put his head closer to the ground to get a good look. "It looks like you're standing on top of the water, as if the pond was iced over and you could stand on it, but there are still fish swimming under your feet."

  
"Can you put your hand into the water?"

  
He leaned over and put his hand into the shallow water. It felt cool and refreshing, especially with the heat and sunlight starting to rise.

  
"Ah!" Taki quietly exclaimed. "Your hand disappeared! That's so interesting!"

  
He raised his arm out, water still dripping from his fingers. Taki couldn't see the water either, even as it rolled off Natsume's skin.

  
She sat down next to him, and leafed through the notebook again, looking through the messy scribbles on the aging paper. "My grandfather would often wonder about things like this. He wondered how the yokai world and the human world interacted with one another in different ways. He had some questions on what would happen if the two worlds contradicted each other like this, but he didn't know anyone who could see yokai like you, so he had no way of finding out." Her expression turned solemn and nostalgic as she clutched the book in her arms. "I've actually started taking my own notes recently, writing out answers to questions he could never answer. It makes me feel closer to him in some way."

  
"Taki…"

  
She shook her head and stood back up, looking embarrassed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble about things like that."

  
"No, I understand. Your grandfather means a lot to you. I'm sure he's happy knowing that you're helping him out."

  
"Y-yeah… Thank you," she said bashfully, then she shook her head again. "Anyway, that's not the point I'm trying to make," she said, grabbing her stick off of the ground. "If I see grass in the human world, and you see water, what happens when the two coexist? What happens to the circle drawing in the dirt?"

  
"I...don't know." He looked up at Taki with resolve in his eyes. "Only one way to find out. We need to try, don't we? I think it'll make him really happy if we succeed."

  
"Hm…" She looked at the pristine and green spring grass in their vicinity. "To be honest, I feel sorta bad messing up their garden," she said slightly worried and sighing.

  
Natsume put his fingers to his chin and thought about it for a bit. "Is there any way you could draw it lightly enough so it washes away with rain?" he asked slowly. "That way, we won't mess up the grass very much."

  
She nodded firmly. "I will try my best."

  
"Thank you, Taki."

  
She smiled at Natsume warmly. "You're welcome. And it's not just you either. I really want to see him happy too."

  
"So, how do we start?"

  
"Can you mark out the shape and size of the pond? I can't see it, so I need you to tell me where it is. I think we need to make the circle big enough to have the entire pond inside of it."

  
Natsume stood up and looked around. "Wait here for a bit. I'm going to get some rocks to put around it."

  
He came back carefully balancing two stacks of four smooth grey stones from a nearby stream, one in each hand. He laid the stones to map out the pond and Taki began drawing. She had drawn this circle thousands of times before, back when she was searching for the yokai that cursed her. Luckily, thanks to Natsume’s help, that incident was nothing more than just a nightmare left in the past.

  
She knew the design by heart. She closed her eyes and let her muscle memory take over.

  
“Is there any way I can help?” Natsume asked while gazing at the reflection of the sky in the pond, not knowing what else to do. The red fish were swimming more energetically than normal, likely due to the presence of the two humans.

  
“No it’s okay. This shouldn’t take too long. I’m almost done.” She continued her drawing for a bit and then suddenly stopped and hesitated, her stick still in her hand but with the end angled into a spot near the center of the circle.

  
“What’s wrong?” Natsume jumped up on his feet, concerned that something had happened.

  
“Nothing’s wrong…” Taki said. “This is the last line of the circle. What if this doesn’t work? Or what if something weird happens?”

  
“Then we’ll try something else,” Natsume said assertively. “And if that doesn’t work either, then we’ll both at least know that we tried our best.”

  
“Natsume? Taki?”

  
“Ah!” the two of them shouted in unison.

  
“G-good morning Tanuma,” Natsume said, waving and smiling awkwardly.

  
Taki waved. “H-hi. You’re probably wondering what we’re doing here…”

  
Tanuma breathed a sigh of relief. He had been cautiously hiding with the door only partially open, but now relaxed and opened the door all the way. He was still wearing his pajamas and his hair was uncombed. “To be honest, I’m glad it’s just you two. I was inside and I thought I heard voices coming from here. I ignored it at first because I thought I was just imagining things, but then I became worried because I wasn’t expecting any guests today.” He raised an eyebrow at the two of them, “Though, I wasn’t expecting you guys either.

  
Natsume bowed in apology. “Sorry for intruding. We would have told you ahead of time, but we wanted to surprise you with something.”

  
“Hm?”

  
“Taki!”

  
“Okay!” She tightened her grasp on her wooden stick, and in one smooth motion, she connected two previously drawn lines. When she finished, she squinted and gasped, blinded by a new reflection of the morning sun.

  
To Natsume, the scene looked exactly the same as it did before, so he was staring at Taki eyes and trying to read her reaction. It seemed promising. “Did it work?” he asked awkwardly.

  
Taki took a step back and then off to the side. “Ta-da!” she yelled energetically, looking at Tanuma and smiling expectantly.

  
“Ta...da!” Natsume followed.

  
“Wow, it’s so pretty!” Taki continued, stirring some of the water at the surface with her stick and creating small ripples. “I’m so happy it worked!”

  
Tanuma slowly stepped out of the doorway and into the sunlight. He knelt on the still damp grass in front of the pond, getting some mud on his sleepwear pants in the process, and looked at the group of red fish calmly swimming around the clear water.

  
After a long moment of silence, he replied. “It’s beautiful.”

  
Another spring rain washed away the circle later that week, but the memories of the sight remained.


End file.
